Mr Coochey, just in case you haven't yet realized, the dark blue text in Conversation articles is indicative of a link to a source - in the case of your question, and article by Nate Silver (identified in line in the article text) based on the US General Social Survey. That answers several of your points and if you had read carefully they would not have been necessary. the remainder of your comment, hinging on your interpretation of an uncited survey (which may have had optional multiple reasons for owning a gun including personal protection but it is uncited so I cannot check your assertion) and uncited ACT figures, tends to suggest that surveys might overestimate gun ownership in Australia.

The ACT figures are from the census and act firearms registration which may be available from the AIC. The one in five was from the 1989 international crime survey not the 91 which had widely different figures in some areas. Both surveys were criticised for having inconsistent collection methods but I remember Patricia Easteal now of the University of Canberra to say how disgraceful the sexual assault figures were for Australia when the 89 figures were released causing one commentator to ask why she continued to live her (she is American) but when the 91 figures were released with an average rate for an indusrialised country she remained silent. It would appear the one in five figure was strategic answering with a view to not encouraging home invasion.

Thanks to Dennis for drawing my attention to a secondary or tertiary source in the form of a press article. The subsequent link seems to be firewalled or at least only available on password but from the summary it appears it suffers from the same uncertainty as the International Crime Survey. What it does point out is that according to an electoral exit pole about half of voters claimed they had a firearm in the house which is different from a broadcast on ABC Canberra this morning which claimed a third. Can anyone throw any light on this anomoly?

@ John Coochey "...according to an electoral exit pole about half of voters claimed they had a firearm in the house...."

How you extrapolate "about half" from 42% is a quandry; however without knowing the ABC source, the 2008 National Exit Poll (conducted by Edison Media Research/Mitofsky International) would be authoritative.

The 1992 International Crime Victim Survey reported that 15% of Australian households owned a firearm. The 2000 ICVS reported 8%. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime publication "Criminal Victimisation in International Perspective"http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=criminal%20victimization%20in%20internationalperspective&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CEUQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fenglish.wodc.nl%2Fimages%2Fob257_full%2520text_tcm45-103353.pdf&ei=9V_RUN2BJZSjiQeQ4YGADw&usg=AFQjCNEsGNrJ0Y2qO240NBtnK8axbBEV2Q&bvm=bv.1355534169,d.aGc puts Australian gun ownership in 1989 at 20.1%
USA gun ownership in 1989: 49.1%, 2005: 42.8%

It would be erroneous to extrapolate ACT registration figures to the whole of Australia.

@ Dennis

The ICVS includes a multiple choice question on the reasons for gun ownership (Question 343 on the 2004 ICVS).:
1) for hunting
2) target shooting (sports)
3) as part of a collection (collector’s item)
4) for crime prevention/protection
5) in armed forces or the police or security industry

I would like to join Dennis is thanking David for this useful synopsis of gun control legislation and political debate in the US.
Nate Silver's excellent blog was interesting.
I'd also like to thank Dennis for pointing out the article from the Chronicle of Higher Education, a great read.

Peter, I grew up in the suburbs of a major US city in the '50s and '60s, and the 'climate of fear' was there then. For us, it meant not going downtown, always keeping the car doors locked to prevent someone jumping in and assaulting us when stopped at an intersection, and my father always keeping a French bayonet next to him in the car in case he needed to defend himself in such a situation. Crime and gun violence were associated with blacks, the poor, and with gangs. Not venturing out of a 'nice' neighbourhood was considered to be the best protection. If you did hear strange noises outside your home at night, the man of the house would typically grab something like a hunting rifle and stomp around outside to scare the intruder away. Major culture shock, indeed, when I moved to the UK in 1972,only to find that police officers didn't carry guns!

Sorry Margo I have to reply to myself up here because this silly new system won't let me do the obvious.

I've spent the last few days trying to get a grip on this from a few angles in which I have some experience - and I keep coming back to history and race. The latter is the big one.

The increase of serious weaponry - high capacity magazines and automatics and semi-automatics (crowd killers) seems to coincide with the Kennedys and Lyndon Johnson and the civil rights movement. Perhaps it was the sight of a Federal Government using the National Guard to restrain State Troopers or bus kids in to de-segregated schools. Something scared them to death.

But it's actually rather hard to get data on US gun ownership by "race"... which is curious because everything else gets broken down on this dubious notion. Here's one: http://www.project.org/info.php?recordID=272

You'll see that rates of gun ownership amongst "blacks and others" runs at about 50% of the arsenal owned by "white" folks. They are obviously failing to take advantage of the freedoms and rights offered by the Constitution. The wicked side of me thinks immediately of organising Live Aid fundraising to ensure there's a Bushmaster under every ethnic bed.

I shall continue my wandering in this awful paddock and see if I can track down some more useful data. But it appears that looking at "gun ownership by race" is not a popular topic.

Thanks very much for those Margo.

I've come across the Gallop polling figures elsewhere but tended to opt for other sources given Gallop's rather appaling strke rates on predicting election results. I have a deep possibly irrational suspicion of polling - perhaps I was bitten by a market researcher as a child = but the methodology is often dodgy anmd the analysis even worse. Also phone polling tends to get a very low response rate (approx 10%) and systematically underreport minorities and low income groupings.

But, given that there are actually no central record of gun ownership in the US - and apparently no means of collating what is available (?) - the only sources I've been able to grab are various forms of polling based numbers. Funny the things we choose to measure and those we choose to leave in a heap in the backyard.

Hopefully developing a more effective tracking and monitoring system will be part of any response to Connecticut.

The second older paper (1991) is much more interesting - as much for what it does not mention as for what it actually contains.Not a word on the random massacres that we are concerned by here. In 1991 I suspect this was not yet a major policy issue.

But I did find this interesting:

"Gun control is a very minor, though not entirely irrelevant, part of the solution to the violence problem, just as guns are of only very minor significance as a cause of the problem. The U.S. has more violence than other nations for reasons unrelated to its extraordinarily high gun ownership. Fixating on guns seems to be, for many people, a fetish which allows them to ignore the more intransigent causes of American violence, including its dying cities, inequality, deteriorating family structure, and the all- pervasive economic and social consequences of a history of slavery and racism. And just as gun control serves this purpose for liberals, equally useless "get tough" proposals, like longer prison terms, mandatory sentencing, and more use of the death penalty serve the purpose for conservatives. All parties to the crime debate would do well to give more concentrated attention to more difficult, but far more relevant, issues like how to generate more good-paying jobs for the underclass which is at the heart of the violence problem. "

I think there is some wisdom in here although I cannot accept the initial sentence as a fact myself. Not any more. I suspect the use of high capacity rapid fire weapons in near random acts (drive-bys) and insane massacres like this one have in effect created a whole new class of crime which was not considered significant only 20 years ago.

I also had one of those jaw-dropping moments which seem all too frequent in this area: "Each year about 1500-2800 criminals are lawfully killed by gun-wielding American civilians in justifiable or excusable homicides, far more than are killed by police officers."

Think about that for a while and what it means. And this from a time when only 35% of houses had a gun (now around 50%) and only 5% regularly carried a gun for self-defence. God knows how many folks on the bus are packing heat nowdays.

Anyway, more food for thought. I shall continue snacking. More please if you find 'em.

And here is a reasonable article by a couple of grad students, whose info and analysis are pretty consistent with my own experience & understanding: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/26/opinion/breland-gergi-gun-victims/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

Thanks Z ... a very impassioned piece and spot on the money I think - particulalry the recommendations.

Let's hope there's some hope.... a virtuous circle.

But it is terrible to be reading the gun-toter press and blogs. 12 hours after the Connecticut news broke is the earliest "WATCH OUT!! THERE (sic) COMING TO TAKE YOUR GUNS" post I've found so far.

Perhaps because of the extreme insensitivity required, the discussion so soon after the event was extreme - in language and ideas (madness if you prefer). It was the early warning system of the lunatic fringe.

I found several posts reminding the good folks at home that the constitution provided for this exact moment - when the guvvermint comes and oppresses you. And he's black. And a muslim. And foreign. It's the END TIMES!!!!! Time to shoot back first. To arms! To arms! Paul Revere on a keyboard in the basement of his parents' place.

An epidemic of fear, national creation myths, threatened personal and global identity, surrounded by enemies - within and without, armed citizens' siezing the streets... geez this all sounds too familiar.

I'm starting to think Obamacare should be giving out free Bushmaster crowd killers to the poor, minorities and anyone who would make a good target.

Thanks Margo.

The NRA's really shot itself in the foot I think ... the tighter the circle gets the more the future promised by these fear-mongers becomes apparent. Connecticut itself is sympotmatic, as is their response - even more distinct perhaps.

The NRA comments have been widely reported here - generally in a stunned disbelief. On-line comments have been invariably incredulous. He's the best advocate for gun control you've got I reckon. Get him lots of press. Interviews. Pay for his ads.

I am actually optimistic, as I hope are you. This glaring exposure - a DEMAND to plant armed guards in your schools - and pre-schools by sensible extension - school busses too ...and hospitals I guess , and libraries, universities of course... anywhere there's a crowd of targets. ..is a significant public moment.

Why not a Parent's vigilante - the school canteen bristling with mums packing bushmasters. Landmines on the lawn?

The NRA spokesman is bereft of argument at least on crowd killing weaponry.

Perhaps it's "yes you can"moment. There are fingers crossed everwhere - which explains the typos.

And here's another interesting commentary on the gun-owning rationale ('Why I taught my 13 year old daughter to shoot' - Washington Post): http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-i-taught-my-13-year-old-daughter-to-shoot/2012/12/21/ac61c386-4a0b-11e2-820e-17eefac2f939_story_1.html

This reminded me that, according to my husband, there was nothing extraordinary about a teenage boy walking down the main street of small towns in NSW in the 1960s with a hunting rifle.

My first question is, what is a teenager? That's what I am getting at. The idea was invented in the US, of literary origin a la Steinbeck and his idea of the disturbed adolescent. When I was young there was no such thing. Past puberty one was a young man, or a young lady.

What is a parent likewise? Having children is suddenly a licence to tyranny?

Second question, which follows, of course; on what grounds do you presume to impose your own ideas of behaviour and expectations of accountability, on anybody? Regardless of age, aren't other people entitled to respect, to have matters raised for discussion, and to have a reasonable process to follow in doing so?

Looks to me like your kids were merely following the example you yourself set, in seeking to impose their will rather than consider the thoughts and feelings of others, and engage others in a reasonable and thoughtful way. As you refuse to consider them, show them respect, and have them listen to you, on what grounds would they suddenly respect you, our consider your views?

We are currently facing a major epidemic of what has become known as domestic violence. I am concerned to discern its aetiology rather than simply casting blame on men, and on children, where repeatedly I run instead into women seeking to impose their own ideas and expectations without considering the rights of others whose home it is, arguing that's "pretty normal".

That's not "pretty normal", it is aberrant, dictatorial, violent in itself. It is the ontological violence in repudiating others' sense of themself, their own ideas and expectations, that is obviously triggering annoyance and as we see increasingly outbreaks of violence, with tragic results.

Past time, methinks, we started to review the way children and young people are being spoken to, and treated, and considered Other.

Just to keep things in perspective, Margo, and to clarify my intention here, when I was 13 it was not me pointing a shotgun at either of my parents, but my mother on valium and alcohol pointing a shotgun at me, obsessed from what I can gather with the idea that I might "turn out like my father."

Over the 50 years since I have personally witnessed and accumulated statements from boys especially who faced such abuse from their mother, still today they come to see me about it. We know without doubt that children who 'misbehave' are in fact terrified, often for their lives. We counsel them on that basis. Many like me still carry the physical scars as well.

But try to bring justice to this situation, assert the right of the child to not be so abused. The moment any male sticks his head up he is screamed down by the feminist lobby and their supporters, threatened with further violence for "offending women", being "misogynist", arrested and slandered forever after as a "convicted paedophile", whatever they choose to dream up so as to avoid facing the simple facts.

No worries, we persist.

Better, I agree, to take firearms out of the equation, so long as we recognise that's only the start of the journey.